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The latest in kitchen tools: 3-D printers, robot chefs, and the Digital Chocolatier

For Marcelo Coelho it seemed odd that people have been cooking in the kitchen for the same way for decades.

If you've ever wondered what a Digital Chocolatier looks like, now you know. It's a machine used to design and taste different chocolate candies. (Jamie Zigelbaum photo)

By Debra BlackStaff Reporter

Tues., Sept. 14, 2010

For Marcelo Coelho it seemed odd that people have been cooking in the kitchen for the same way for decades.

So Coelho, a PhD student at the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and fellow PhD student Amit Zoran, decided to change that – in theory, at least.

The two have come up with some rather unusual concepts and prototypes for digital machines that may turn up the heat in the kitchen, transforming the way we cook.

They have dubbed this future world of cooking: Digital Gastronomy.

It’s all part of their research work at the Media Lab at MIT, which Coelho said encourages its students to come up with creative ideas and not worry about whether or not the technology exists to manufacture them.

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That was the beginning of the Cornucopia project and a new way of looking at cooking, explained Coelho in an interview with the Star.

The pair thought that it was about time computer-controlled technology hit the fine art of gastronomy.

“We’ve been using the same techniques and tools for a long time – such as stoves and ovens,” said Coelho who did his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal. “The only big change really is the microwave – which is a kind of stove.”

But in industrial design, the fabrication techniques have changed considerably with the introduction of computer-controlled machines such as laser cutters and 3-D printers.

“We started thinking about integrating those machines that people use to design things with food,” said the 30-year-old Coelho, who is originally from Brazil. “We began looking at food as a design process and a process of creativity.”

The pair came up with some unusual ideas, including the Digital Fabricator, which is “a personal three-dimensional printer for food which works by storing, precisely mixing, depositing and cooking layers of ingredients.”

Another concept: the Robotic Chef, with a mechanical arm “designed to physically and chemically transform a single solid food object, such as a steak, fish or a fruit.”

But before you pooh-pooh his ideas as sheer academic fantasy just check out his one working prototype called the Digital Chocolatier. This machine allows users to make different chocolate candies. It has a carousel of ingredients, a thermoelectric cup and a graphical user interface.

Here’s how it works: If you want to make candy you select and combine the ingredients housed in the carousal by punching the graphical interface.

Then the carousel rotates and the ingredients are put into the thermoelectric cup. The cup cools, the chocolate hardens. Users can even store recipe information in the machine.

“It actually works,” Coelho said. “I thought it (the candy) would be bad, but it tasted great.”

The Cornucopia Project machines are definitely something that can be manufactured, Coelho believes. And they will change the face of the fine art of cooking for years to come.

“The technology is there. What’s required is time and money. There is no fundamental technical challenge that is not impossible to overcome.”

Coelho hopes that one day these new tools will be in everyone’s kitchen and people will be able to steer away from processed food. People always complain about all the additives in our food, he said.

But if his concepts become the latest rage in cooking people won’t have to worry about additives. They will have direct control over what’s going into the machine, he explained.

New technology doesn’t come out of the sky, Coelho explained. “You have to come up with ideas and just think about them without constraint. Then you step back and start trying things out and see what’s doable.”

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